Decision Making Process as a Games Forum - Case Study Example

Name Unit Class Executive summary This report uses personality and values perspective to analyse decision making process at Game Forum which is company specialising in production and sales of games. The decision in the company to expand to China is made by the manager without consulting his executive team. The process of making decision and implementing it is affected by the personality and values of the manager as well as the executive. Looking at the personality perspective, the manager uses narcissism in making the decision. He is arrogant and does not listen to the input of the others. Apart from Josh, the rest of the executives are able to criticise the manager. The ability of the executives to give their views openly is affected by their personality and values. The fact that the executive does not like his type of leadership and personalities makes it hard to implement the decision. The manager is Introverted and uses narcissism hence unable to implement decision making effectively. The company is in form of chaos with each of the executive implementing the manager suggestion independently. This type of crisis makes it hard for the organisation to effect change effectively. From the case, decision making process is affected by narcissism and introversion and coming up with viable results will be hard. There is need for the management to involve all the executives in making the decision to make it possible for implementation and avoid crisis. Table of Contents Executive summary 2 Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Personality and values perspective at Game Forum 4 Narcissism 5 Extroversion and decisions making 6 Employees’ personality effects on the implementation. 7 Outcome 9 Conclusion 10 Recommendations 10 References 12 Introduction The purpose of this report is to analyse the decision making process as Games forum. Games Forum is a company that specialises in the production and sales of games. The company manager came up with a decision to expand to china without consulting his executive team. The fact that the team members were not consulted in coming up with the decision leads to conflict. It’s important to note that personality and values have a great effect on reaction to situations as well as coming up with decisions. Ricks personality has led to the chaos experienced in the company. This report uses a personality and traits perspective to analyse the decision making process at Game Forum and comes up with recommendations on how to make effective decisions for the company in future. Personality and values perspective at Game Forum According to Goleman (2000), when implementing change, perception and attitude of the initiator play a vital part. It’s important to know that attitude and perception are attached to the personality. In the Game Forum, the personality of each leader plays a major part in their perception. Personality is the set of characteristics that are possessed by a person (Messick et al. 2010). They have a large influence on cognitions and behaviours of the person when in certain situations. Rick personality has a great effect on the way he makes decisions. From the five personality dimensions, it is clear that Rick lacks agreeableness. He is cold, uncooperative, selfish and rude which makes him to come up with decisions without cooperating with other executives. The company has four executives who are supposed to be consulted especially when making such a big decisions. He acts as the sole voice in leading the organisation which undermines the executive morale. His personality makes him an autocratic leader who wants subordinate to follow his decisions without questioning. Lack of employees’ involvement in major decision making may lead to sabotage as seen in this case. According to Fernandes (2009), autocratic leadership can only work in situations where the employees are well motivated or there is limited time for consultations. In the Game Forum case, there is time for consultations and hence Rick should have consulted his subordinates. By alienating the subordinates in making the expansion decision, Rick created a state of revolt in the firm (Messick et al. 2010). From the first meeting, it’s clear that none of the employee is on his side. The employees see him as a leader who wants to do things his own way. The finance director is outraged due to the fact that none of them had been asked to give their input on the decision. The marketing director openly criticizes him for not engaging the rest of the directors when coming up with such a big decision. The management in this firm does not seem to care that errors are costly. Roberts et Al. (2007) asserts that decision made have the capability to transform an organisation and errors induced due to bad judgement should be avoided. The costs of making an error keep on increasing hence the need to involve others. When a leader fails to involve others in making the decisions, they create a barrier. They are seen as arrogant and self righteous. This is the case of Rick, who has failed to involve the rest of the directors when coming up with the decisions. Narcissism Rick personality exhibits narcissism (Judge, Bono, Ilies & Gerhardt, 2002). A person who is having narcissism always demands to be admired and exhibits high sense of self importance. This is a leader who has a sense of entitlement and in most cases shows arrogance. Though narcissist leaders see themselves as the best leaders, their followers sees them as the worst leaders (Roberts et Al. 2007). Due to fact that narcissist leader requires admiration from others and be noted due to their superiority, they rule through looking down at others. This is the case that is evident in the Games Forum leadership. Rick is keen on making everyone in the organisation to see that he is the boss. He treats others as inferior to him, which makes it hard for them to implement his decisions. Rick seems to see that other employees are there for his benefit. This is exhibited when he orders the directors to come up with the plans on meeting expansion strategies and increase efficiencies. According to Ryckman (2004), narcissist bosses are poor in helping other employees. This is due to fact that they are self righteous and do not associate much with others. Extroversion and decisions making Studies have shown that extrovert leaders are good in bringing change in an organisation. Extroverted is a trait that is positively associated with implementing change where everyone in the organisation is involved (Ryckman, 2004). For the manager to bring change through viable decision making, they must be extroverted. To be extroverted, the manager is supposed to influence others in the organisation through direct contact with them. This is a trait that is not available in the Game Forum as the management does not involve the subordinates in making the decisions. Rick leads Game Forum alone and expects the directors to follow him without questioning. In most studies, it has been proved that a leader cannot bring change in an organisation unless they are introverted. If the management cannot influence the followers, there can be no change. In this case, resistance to rick decision are evident. Sue, who is the marketing directors is against the idea strongly. In fact, the marketing director reacts emotionally seeing this as a leadership where Rick bosses everyone and does not involve anyone in planning the company future. To this, Rick is fast to dismiss her claim in the wrong way. Josh though is against the idea, hides his feeling so that he does not conflict with the manager. Involving others when coming with major decision ensures that there is consensus in implementing it. Bringing change in an organisation depends on involvement of the employees. This is also evident to the leadership of Salleh who is involved with the Malaysian workforce. He protects his workforce and looks at the implication that the management decision will have on them. He looks at the consequences that can occur if the workforce would be required to implement Rick’s decision. According to studies done, leaders should be able to communicate with others and involve them to make the change decision appealing (Sutter, 2009). In this case Rick came up with the decision alone and prepared a penetration plan without involving others. Bringing a change in an organisation is an action that is directly related to the traits of management in an organisation (Ryckman, 2004). Rick lacks openness to experience which is associated with the autocratic leaders. This makes him to lack emotional stability when coming up with decisions. Employees’ personality effects on the implementation. Game Forum as an organisation has employees with different personalities which had an effect on the Ricks decision to expand. The marketing director reacts emotionally to the director decision. She openly tells the director her feeling towards his decision making process without involving others. She is open and does not hide her resentment towards ricks leadership. The main personality trait that is outstanding in her is conscientiousness. She is organised and self disciplined as she notes the need for consultation before making a major decision. She also has high esteem as she is not afraid to speak her mind. Those with high self esteem feel good about themselves and capable of doing any task (Borghans, Duckworth, Heckman & Ter Weel, 2008). Josh, who is the finance director does not speak his mind. He has need for affiliation as his main interest is to maintain good relation with the manager. He wants to be liked so that he can be second in command to Rick. The extent to which someone is concerned in keeping a positive relationship determines their need for affiliation (Beach, 2005). Though the need to get along with others is important in a working environment, it should not be exercised at the expense of others (Almlund et al. 2011). Josh has been supporting the management decision without proper evaluation so that to appear likeable. He has also gone to the extent of undermining Sue efforts in the organisation. When all other executives give warning on the expansion plan, Josh does not criticise it but makes it look workable. This is an attempt to please Rick and gain trust. In the background, he agrees with other directors that there are challenges in the Rick’s decision. His ambitions to have promotions in the organisation makes him support Rick’s decision without questioning. A person with poor self esteem looks down upon themselves and their ability (Ryckman, 2004). This can be seen to be the case with Josh who does not speak his mind but follows Rick’s decisions blindly. Ashish can be classified as having high self esteem. He believes in his ability and knew that his skills were capable of sustaining him. Core self evaluation is a personality attribute that influences organisational behaviour of an employee (Bazerman & Moore, 2008). Having positive core self evaluation enables the employee to see themselves as capable and in control. This is the case of Ashish who believes that he can be able to make it in his career using his skills. He openly criticises the expansion plans and doesn’t see their sustainability in the long run. His high personal esteem makes it possible for him to express his mind. Having high personal esteem enables a person to have a feeling of competent and capability. Salleh is a hardworking employee who had been able to set his company earlier. He had been able to manage the Malaysian workforce effectively and was ready to protect them from any bad decisions from the head office if possible. He is not afraid to speak his mind and questions the viability of the expansion plan. He is also not pleased with the way the management made decisions without consulting. His main challenge is implications that the expansion plan will have with his workforce. This depicts him as a responsible leader who is honest, helpful and ready to look at any decisions logically. The employees’ personality and values have a great influence on the implementation of Rick’s decisions. As explained, the employees are not comfortable in his management style and decisions making. This is bound to affect the outcome of the decision to expand. The employees have their misgiving on the idea but Rick forces them to implement it. Outcome Due to Rick leadership style and personality, the employees are forced to implement the expansion business plan. Ricks have dismissed all the warnings given by the executives as alarmist and gives instructions for the execution. This displays arrogance that may hinder the success of the expansion plan. By ignoring the executives’ input, it’s likely that they will not be committed (Arbak & Villeval, 2011). There are also high chances of losing some of the employees who feels unvalued in the organisation. The executive carries the plan independently, which makes it hard to achieve good results. Conclusion This case analysis looks at the decision making process used by Rick who is the manager at Game Forum and the impact on the organisation executives. The analysis has considered the personality and values of Rick as well as his team of the executives and their influence on the decision to expand to China. The case analysis have also analysed the outcome of Rick’s decision and the recommendations. Rick is introverted and exhibits narcissism which makes him arrogant and ignores other members in the board. He makes the decision alone and expects the employees to implement it without questioning. Apart from Josh who does not openly criticise Rick, the rest of the employees give their criticism. It’s evident that the traits of the individuals involved had a great impact on the implementation of the decision. The reaction of each of the executives shows how personality and traits affects decision implementation. Making decision without consultation in an organisation leads to conflict which has adverse effects on the results. It’s evident that the personality and values of the employee will determine how they will handle the decision. Recommendations For Games Forum to make progress there is need for consultation. Making decisions without consulting the executive poses a major threat to the organisation. Narcissism and introversion are major hindrance to consultation. Though Rick thinks he is the best leader, he is worse and his arrogance will lead to the eventual failure of his decision. Rick has to change the personality and become more inclusive by valuing his executive team contribution. According to the proactive dimension of personality, the leader should identify opportunity, take action and show preference (Ryckman, 2004). This is trait that should be embraced by Rick. There is need to adopt personality such as extroversion that can help in carrying out change in the organisation. There is need to have consultative leadership and getting more involved with the subordinates. Rick has to make sure that he gets more involvement of his subordinates when coming up with new decisions. As the company manager, Rick is supposed to lead the organisation with emotional stability. This is a trait that Rick lacks as he acts emotionally. When criticised, he openly chastise the employee in front of others. He should have been able to handle the situation more calmly rather than using emotions. This type of character can lead to the employee being demoralised and eventual poor performance. References Almlund, M., Duckworth, A.L., Heckman, J.J. & Kautz, T.D. (2011). Personality psychology and economics. NBER Working Paper Series No: 16822. Arbak, E. & Villeval, M. C. (2011). Voluntary Leadership: Motivation and Influence, Social Choice and Welfare, forthcoming. Bazerman, M.H. & Moore, D. (2008). Judgment in Managerial Decision Making. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 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